Celebrate Movember this month and support the fight against prostate and testicular cancer. Donate today here or read more on how to get involved. Do you know someone who is growing out a mustache to support? Marlowe is trying.

Sometimes I feel as if I just am wearing and liking the same things. Black, leather, leopard, repeat. This feels like a pattern. The Prada shoes feel like refined revisit to the grunge era I grew up with. I will be dreaming about these for sure. Should I splurge or save on these?

Tom Ford makeup is such a special and luxurious treat. The lipsticks are pigmented and last all day. The foundation stick is the perfect and most blendable coverage I've found. On this haul, I also purchased a double ended liquid eyeliner. One side is thin for the lashline while the other side is thick for dramatic looks. Very happy with these purchases so far.

Less than 24 hours until the most epic of designer collaborations is launched. The teasers in the press, the Paris preview, seeing bloggers posting pics.... it's just all getting me too excited.

To help you select your favorites, H&M has put together an interactive site to tag your favorites from the collection. Below are my pieces that I'm covering. However, being real, I know I'll show up and just say, "oh I need... and this too... and can't forget this....."

My favorites

Do you all have a game plan for tomorrow? Are you standing in line right now? Good luck and happy hunting!

I have been a long time fan of Leandra Medine. Not only is she someone that I want to be friends with, but I love how she gives a voice to the girls who aren't necessarily First Look ready. Her voice is priority, and I really admire that. As a blogger, it's easy to fall into the trap of doing what everyone else is... or trying to copy what was successful for someone else. Man Repeller with her honey badger attitude don't care. She's in it for herself and inspires you to be too.

Thank you Leandra for being a champion for the quirky, the unusual, those who are different.

Where have we been? Well it's been a long hiatus, but we're pretty much the same place where we were. Still NYers misplaced in SF, but growing to love it. Still loving makeup and nails, but we want to write about more. Still being ourselves.

During my hiatus, I had too much going and no time for myself, but I recently found myself on an operating table having spinal surgery. It really put things into perspective. Blogging was such a creative outlet for me when I felt that I had little going on. When I had too much going on, I never put myself or the things I enjoyed doing first. I want to carve out more time for myself and the things I like to do. So... let's start blogging!

A recent step in this "life is too short craze" was jumping into something I always wanted to do.... which is go purple!

Hi Everyone! I know it's been a long time, and it seems like I just went completely M.I.A. It's been personally really a difficult, busy and stressful time in my life. I have tried to find balance with Beautyburg and life outside of it, but at the moment, it's not really possible to keep everything juggling. With a lot of sadness and guilt, I am taking a short break from blogging. You may see posts here and there, but at the moment, I cannot commit to it in the same way as I once did. This was a really difficult decision for me, as I would seriously get sleepless thinking about how I am letting people down by not posting enough. I hope that you can hang on while I take a little break, but I really want to be back soon!

With that, I would like to thank you guys for being such awesome followers, readers, fellow bloggers! Thank you for checking in and for all your kind comments and emails. Beautyburg is almost at 2000 followers and almost at 1800 fans on Facebook! That literally blows my mind!

Now onto our winner............ the winner of this wonderful Wonder Woman stuff is Hristina! Congrats Hristina!!!! Thank you everyone else for participating!

A Student entry for the Character/Prosthetic Mythological Creatures Theme Competition.

On Day 2 of IMATS, there was a second student competition that explored more of the elaborate side of makeup. Sunday's competition was focused on the theme of Fantasy Beauty. Student finalists had three hours to transform their models from mere mortals into their crazy fantasy vision. I was incredibly impressed with the work that these artists were doing. Also, I was taken back by the patience of their models!

A student at work.

All prosthetics were homemade by the students.

Backstage working on their models.

Airbrushing

Every detail of thought of... even the nails.

The finished models!

This model was really in character.

Amazing! This is straight out of a fantasy movie!

Everyone was amazing talented, and I could never do what they do. Have you ever thought about fantasy makeup? If you were going to create a mythological creature look... what would it be?

Beauty is my obsession. I devote all my free time on it. My wallet fears it. But what's life beyond beauty? What else is there? Let's examine these questions in this week's Weekly Doodle. Feel free to leave your responses in the comments!

I know what you're going to say. I'm so slow to report on my IMATS trip! But I still have a lot of great coverage to share. One of my favorite parts of IMATS was meeting some of my favorite bloggers and vloggers in person. I felt completely star struck by seeing all of my favorite gurus that I spend hours watching. Everyone was so sweet and welcoming! I totally felt a little fanatical! Thank you to everyone I met! I hope you will be in IMATS LA!

Koren from EnKore Makeup was at a Make Up For Ever Pro social I went to on Thursday and again at IMATS. I had actually lost my voice because of allergies and had to really muster up my strength to say hi! He was so sweet!

I absolutely LOVE Tatiana Ward, aka BeatFaceHoney. First, she does some really gorgeous tutorials and has a beautiful voice. Second, she has one of the most entertaining personal channels on YouTube. Her friends are all so fun and adorable, plus you gotta love a Philly girl, right? Subscribe to her makeup channel here and her personal channel here. She put up a video on her IMATS experience on her personal channel and here as a tutorial!

Happy Easter/Passover/SPRING Everyone! Is anyone else seriously suffering from allergies this season? This year has been really bad for me personally! I went back to New York and lost my voice from allergies! I had never heard of such a thing. Now I'm back in California and I can't seem to kick the stuffiness! I even got a Neti pot to help.

Well enough about the dampers of the spring season and onto our winner! We had amazing response to this giveaway. I loved reading some of your favorite things about spring. Many of you enjoyed flowers, the weather and changing into fun colors! Some of you shared unique pleasures of spring like trench coats, birthdays and a general spirit of renewal. Thank you for participating in this giveaway!

Congratulations to MadamLuck who is the winner of our giveaway! I love it that so many of you are bloggers/vloggers/beauty addicts. Check out MadamLuck's page here.

To everyone else, we still have our Facebook Fan giveaway going on until the end of the month. After that, well I'll have to think of something special!

I hope you're enjoying spring. If anyone has some allergy remedy recommendations, please leave it in the comments! I'm seriously desparate!

One of the biggest and definitely most popular booth at IMATS was Inglot. The line for Inglot never seemed to diminish throughout both days of the show. The poor exhibitors working the booth must have seriously been exhausted by the end of the show. I don't think they got a second of rest over the span of two days.

What everyone was waiting for was the Freedom System palettes. It's Inglot's mix-match-make-your-own system. You can create palettes with face powders, blushes, eyebrow cremes, eyebrow powders, creme concealers, lip colors and of course eyeshadows!!!! I got in VERY early on Saturday and was actually the first person to make a palette at IMATS! I made two 20 pan eyeshadow palettes. The prices are going up in May, and with the 30% discount at the show, it was necessary to get forty eyeshadows! The price of the 20 pan square eyeshadow palette at the show was $72 (regularly $95).

Blushes

Face powders

Cream Concealer

Brown Collections - powders and cremes.

Eyeshadowssssssss..........

So many gorgeous shades!

Neutrals!

Palettes can be made in round or square

This was the counter prior to anyone touching it!

Before long there would be a crowd swarming this stand!

Greyscale...

Pinks!

It was hard to pick only 40!

My finished palettes!

If you missed IMATS, you can still order your palette online at http://inglotcosmetics.com. Try to buy now before the price increase in May! But even with the increase, what you get for your $ is still a great value.

Eve Pearl, 5 time Emmy award winning makeup artist, knows a thing or two about looking good on camera. At her booth at IMATS, makeovers were going around the clock helping women (and men) go from good to great. Beautyburg's E volunteered, extremely willingly, to be a test subject for an Eve Pearl makeover.

I always find Eve Pearl impressive. Whether it's by her energy to do makeup for TV, run a makeup studio, spearhead a global makeup brand, be continually omnipresent at all the makeup trade shows.... it's all very, very impressive. Another thing to add onto that list of impressive things about Eve Pearl is her presence and organization at IMATS. Her booth was completely tricked out with cameras, studio lights, optimal counter space and makeover stations, TVs, photographers, cameramen, handlers, etc. Her staff was amazingly knowledgeable, friendly and composed, which is difficult in the mayhem of a trade show.

But what I always find most impressive about Eve Pearl is actually the products. They are always so good. So you can imagine my excitement when they were premiering their new HD Liquid Foundation at IMATS! Of course, I had to snag a tube. This formula is not yet available on the website, as they are still waiting for bottles (prototype photographed below), but they were selling 0.5oz tubes at IMATS. I will have a full review on the foundation soon, but what I can tell you about it is that is it..... you guessed it..... impressive. It's medium to full coverage, with the option of being sheered out with a damp sponge. The texture is luxurious. It feels like nourishing lotion on my face. The overall finish is satin and it's extremely lightweight. For those who are intimidated by cream foundations but have been interested in the Eve Pearl line, this is for you.

IMATS, which is produced by Make-Up Artist Magazine, holds student competitions during the show. On Saturday, students competed in a Tribal Beauty Theme competition, showcasing their interpretations. It was amazing to watch these students make-up, style and hairdress their models, all in record time.

IMATS focuses all on the endless possibilities of makeup. So you want to be a goat girl? No problem! Makeup can do that! At the Mehron booth, there were amazing transformation demos all weekend. One that I was able to capture from beginning to end was this horned ram/goat mythical figure.

See the cute girl in the background? Watch her go from normal to fantasy!

Capped and read for horns!

Artists from Mehron attach her horns.

Do you think you could this with makeup?

Mehron specializes in theatrical and stage makeup, but they also make some beautiful foundations and blushes for everyday! I purchased some of their foundations and a blush and will be reviewing them soon. To check out Mehron products go to www.mehron.com.

Friday, on my glorious day of beauty with the fabulous GlowyJoeyBunny,who writes for PinkSith.com, we stopped by early to visit Ji Baek at Rescue Beauty Lounge. My nails were in desperate need of saving. After working like a maniac, packing, traveling and running around the streets of New York for pre-IMATS coverage, my nails were such a wreck.

Ji welcomed us into her sanctuary of a spa and was the most hospitable and hilarious hostess. Everyone knows that Ji is beautiful, fashionable and business savvy, but she is also incredibly funny. By the time we left, our tips and toes were perfection and we were also in stitches. Thank you Ji for having us, and I'm already looking forward to my next visit.

I opted for a manicure in Insouciant from the new Ironic/Iconic collection. It's a sophisticated lavender purple with tiny sapphire microshimmer. I'm loving this grown-up taken on a pastel purple for spring.

Insouciant is available in limited quantities at www.rescuebeauty.com for $18. Rescue Beauty Lounge is located at 34 Gansevoort Street, 2nd Floor, New York, NY.

The largest and definitely the most in demand line featured at IMATS New York was unquestionably Inglot. For those who are not familiar with Inglot, it's a Polish brand that has recently launched in the US a few years ago and only recently opened an online store. They have been branching out in 2010, making headway with stores in Las Vegas, Southern California and a new studio in Chelsea Market, New York. Inglot, the company, is over 20 years old. The line boasts a huge range of shades and colors with a lot of products for personal and professional use.

Everyone was lining up to scope out products from Inglot. One of the most popular items is their Freedom System palettes. I will have another post shortly devoted only to the Freedom System. They've recently launched a 20 pan eyeshadow palette, which is a must have from the line!

Luckily, I got in early on Saturday and was able to photograph the display before the mob set in.

Although the Freedom System offers a wide range of colors to choose from, Inglot carries more individual shades of eyeshadow in these round pans.

Just want to swatch every shade.....

These pans are huge!

There are almost too many products to try!

I love how pristine everything is! (Though that did not last long.)

Powders, foundations, oh my!

Yep, that sign says 30% off! Another reason to get to the trade shows!

One thing that I've mentioned that I love about IMATS compared to other trade shows I've attended is its focus on makeup artistry in industry. How are people pushing the boundaries of makeup for professional purposes? The best place to think about where these limits are being constantly tested is in movies and TV. With increasingly better technology, the scrutiny over the makeup artist's work is intense, to put it mildly. You know you gotta be good.

I loved how on the first floor as you walked in, there was a mini-museum with some amazing examples of makeup work for seriously theatrical purposes. The displays ranged from chins and cheeks to create a distinctive character... to full blown twitching and bleeding mutilated hearthrobes that are wired to work at a push of a button.

All great examples of how makeup can be so much more than just making someone look pretty. The ideas are seriously limitless! And it was all very inspiring!

Don't be confused by the Paul Giamatti picture, that's Eddie Murphy (well not the real one).

Walking Dead? No, just makeup!

Gory guts, yellow rotting flesh. You have to make it look real or go home.

If you are getting squimish, this person has done their job.

**Now For Something DRAMATIC**

NO JAKE NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! YOU CAN'T LEAVE ME!

Psych! It's not the real Prince of Persia, but a latex model wired to twitch and bleed. This was created for his latest movie, Source Code.

But doesn't it look REAL?

I still can't believe how life-like it is!

Thank you IMATS for exposing me to a world beyond perfect skin and smoky eyes.